Robert Egan has a pretty good feel for how desperate the CIA is for scraps of information about North Korea. Egan has served barbecue to North Korean diplomats at his restaurant in Hackensack, N.J., for 15 years, and he has visited Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, several times. He also has fed details about his customers to U.S. authorities, even plucking stray hairs off their suits so American officials could trace the DNA. Not surprising, he has found FBI surveillance equipment hidden in his office.

PALO ALTO - Siegfried Hecker is a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and a professor at Stanford. But his knowledge of the North Korean nuclear program is not purely academic. He has visited North Korea seven times and toured the nuclear facilities. He even held a sample of North Korean-made plutonium (albeit well protected in a glass jar). In an email interview this week after North Korea's third nuclear test, he was asked a series of questions, including the most obvious: How worried should the United States be?

Two U.S. experts have reported that North Korea is engaged in new construction at its main Yongbyon atomic complex, suggesting that the secretive regime is following through on a plan to build a nuclear power reactor, a private American security institute said Saturday. The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security last week released commercial satellite images taken this month showing construction of a rectangular structure, which it believes is a 25- or 30-megawatt light-water reactor.

Robert Egan has a pretty good feel for how desperate the CIA is for scraps of information about North Korea. Egan has served barbecue to North Korean diplomats at his restaurant in Hackensack, N.J., for 15 years, and he has visited Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, several times. He also has fed details about his customers to U.S. authorities, even plucking stray hairs off their suits so American officials could trace the DNA. Not surprising, he has found FBI surveillance equipment hidden in his office.

November 22, 2010 | By John M. Glionna, Jim Puzzanghera and David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times

The U.S. special envoy for North Korea on Monday sought to downplay revelations that Pyongyang is building a new facility to process uranium that can be used in nuclear weapons. State Department special representative Stephen Bosworth met with South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan, later telling reporters that the U.S. has been monitoring construction at North Korea's main Yongbyon atomic complex. "This is obviously a disappointing announcement. It is also another in a series of provocative moves" by North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, Bosworth said.

"Stunning" was how Siegfried Hecker, former head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, described North Korea's new uranium-enrichment facility. While more sophisticated and extensive than previously believed, this plant is entirely consistent with 15 years of sustained effort by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to perfect its nuclear weapons program. Indeed, media reports about a new enrichment plant surfaced as early as February 2009. Moreover, just a week before Hecker's announcement, North Korea confirmed it was building a larger nuclear reactor at Yongbyon.

PALO ALTO - Siegfried Hecker is a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and a professor at Stanford. But his knowledge of the North Korean nuclear program is not purely academic. He has visited North Korea seven times and toured the nuclear facilities. He even held a sample of North Korean-made plutonium (albeit well protected in a glass jar). In an email interview this week after North Korea's third nuclear test, he was asked a series of questions, including the most obvious: How worried should the United States be?

Siegfried S. Hecker, a research scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory since 1973, will become the laboratory's new director, University of California President David P. Gardner announced. Hecker, 42, will assume responsibility in January for a laboratory with a $690-million budget in fiscal 1985 and a staff of 7,900, making it the largest employer in northern New Mexico.

North Korea, calling itself a "proud nuclear power," vowed Saturday to forge ahead with its nuclear program in defiance of the latest United Nations sanctions. In a statement released by the Foreign Ministry, North Korea said it intended to weaponize its stockpile of plutonium and pursue uranium enrichment. Bluster is the stock in trade of Pyongyang's propaganda machine, but coming on the heels of an apparently successful nuclear test May 25, the threats are chilling.

The former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory said Saturday that North Korea is serious about denuclearizing and is willing to contemplate a program such as that used to help former Soviet republics destroy their nuclear weapons. "This is a big deal," said Siegfried Hecker, referring to North Korea's accomplishments so far in shutting down its main nuclear facility at Yongbyon, 60 miles north of Pyongyang.

"Stunning" was how Siegfried Hecker, former head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, described North Korea's new uranium-enrichment facility. While more sophisticated and extensive than previously believed, this plant is entirely consistent with 15 years of sustained effort by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to perfect its nuclear weapons program. Indeed, media reports about a new enrichment plant surfaced as early as February 2009. Moreover, just a week before Hecker's announcement, North Korea confirmed it was building a larger nuclear reactor at Yongbyon.

November 22, 2010 | By John M. Glionna, Jim Puzzanghera and David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times

The U.S. special envoy for North Korea on Monday sought to downplay revelations that Pyongyang is building a new facility to process uranium that can be used in nuclear weapons. State Department special representative Stephen Bosworth met with South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan, later telling reporters that the U.S. has been monitoring construction at North Korea's main Yongbyon atomic complex. "This is obviously a disappointing announcement. It is also another in a series of provocative moves" by North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, Bosworth said.

Two U.S. experts have reported that North Korea is engaged in new construction at its main Yongbyon atomic complex, suggesting that the secretive regime is following through on a plan to build a nuclear power reactor, a private American security institute said Saturday. The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security last week released commercial satellite images taken this month showing construction of a rectangular structure, which it believes is a 25- or 30-megawatt light-water reactor.

Energy Department officials acknowledged Wednesday that several types of nuclear warheads in the U.S. arsenal have been plagued by safety problems that could cause them to burst open and scatter radioactive cancer-causing debris over a wide area. The officials told the Senate Armed Services Committee that all the weapons are now safe, but that conclusion was undercut by testimony from the directors of the three national U.S. laboratories.